Read Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 for Free Online

her stomach twist into knots. That was when she realised that no one knew what Stephen had really wanted, least of all her.
    “I can pop home Saturday afternoon; then I’ll drive straight back to Oxford after the Gathering.”
    “Drive home? Oh, rubbish! We’ll all be tiddly. I’ll clear Dad’s snowboard off your old bed and make it up for you.”
    “Thanks,” she said firmly. “I’ll stay at my house. I’m sure Yoav won’t mind me going back to my own home.” Yoav, Carla’s lodger, looked after her house while she was away at college, and he was used to her dropping in at short notice. She hoped.
    “That means you’ll have to get a taxi back after the Gathering.”
    “It won’t do me any harm. I’d like to sleep in my own bed after being in college accommodation for the past few weeks.”
    “Oh, well, if you must. I suppose we’re lucky you can spare the time at all. Hold on…” She heard her mum in the background . “Of course she’s coming, Gillian… She was waiting for me to call her, and she’s interrupting her exam revision for it, not that any of that stuff really matters. Stephen will always come first.”
    “Mum. I have to go. One of the other students is knocking on the door,” Carla interrupted before she said something she’d regret.
    “Oh, okay. Call me when you set out for home. You know I worry.”
    She put the phone down with a deep sigh. Of course, she knew her mother worried. Who wouldn’t when their son-in-law’s Mercedes had ended up under a supermarket’s lorry? The only mercy of that tragic day was that Stephen died instantly. He didn’t have a chance; the only comfort was he didn’t suffer either.
    Shit. Here she was, after four years, using the same clichés everybody else had trotted out to comfort her and themselves. Clichés were one thing Alex had warned them all about. Be original, he’d urged them. “Let me hear your thoughts, not some other academic’s views you’ve read in a textbook or, God forbid, on Wikipedia.”
    She sat down on her bed, picking at the quilt that she’d made when she’d first been married to Stephen. What was she doing with all of this? What did she care what Alex thought? The whole situation of her fantasising about him was one great big fat cliché. How many students had he observed, in his cool, clever way, screwed up with lust for him?
    For all she knew, he had a girlfriend, even if he didn’t have a wife. She—Carla decided to call her Willow—was probably chopping up the lemons right now in their kitchen, ready to squeeze them on top of his sea bass and bulgur wheat couscous. He was probably sitting down to eat it with her, and they’d laugh, and Willow would say, “Hard day at the coalface, Alex, fending off all those hormonal young women?” And he’d laugh and say, “ They’re not all young, Willow. There’s one of them who oozed all over my beanbag. She’s far too young for a hot flush, but I did worry I was going to have to call the fire brigade at one point. Can you pass the mangetout, please?”
    But, her heart whispered, what if there was no Willow, and Alex felt the same way about her that he’d shown at the fetish party? Surely she should take the chance to find out, no matter how forbidden their relationship might be. Far from wanting to forget they’d ever enjoyed that electric connection, he might even be waiting for her to make the first move.

Chapter Three
    Carla got her chance sooner than she’d expected. A few days later, on her way to the library, she spotted Alex at the other end of the college cloisters. His gown trailed behind him, lifted by the breeze through the open arches, and his footsteps echoed on the flagstones. She caught her breath at the sight of him as he closed the space between them. By the sudden frown, he didn’t seem very happy to see her, but he did stop when he reached her.
    “Hello, Carla, everything okay?”
    “Yes. I was just on my way to the library.”
    “That’s